American oil industry executives chided U.S. President Barack Obama on Wednesday on the eve of his visit to a small town in Oklahoma, where he's expected to urge speedy approval for the southern leg of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline. (Getty Images) | Getty Images

WASHINGTON - U.S. President Barack Obama is ordering federal agencies to expedite the approval process for the southern leg of TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline.

The administration said the president will direct the agencies to fast-track the pipeline when he makes an appearance Thursday at a storage yard in Cushing, Okla., where there's a glut of Midwest oil that can't easily get to refineries on the Gulf of Mexico.

"The need for pipeline infrastructure is urgent because rising American oil production is outpacing the capacity of pipelines to deliver oil to refineries," the White House said in a statement.

The news comes as American oil industry executives chided Obama on the eve of his visit to Cushing, saying he needs to greenlight the entire $7.6 billion pipeline, not just a portion of it.

"Approval of the entire Keystone XL pipeline should happen now — not after the election," the executives at several prominent oil and gas companies said in an open letter to Obama published Wednesday in The Oklahoman newspaper.

"America's greatest benefit will come when we can transport oil from our best energy partner, Canada, and oil-rich North Dakota and Montana."

The Cushing storage yard houses pipes to be used in the construction of the pipeline from the oil hub to Gulf Coast refineries. Currently, crude from oil-rich states like North Dakota and Montana runs into a logjam at Cushing because of a lack of pipeline capacity and a limited number of rail cars that can transport the oil south.

The approval process for a pipeline can ordinarily stretch on for as long as a year. Obama wants to see several months slashed from that timeline.

Environmentalists are crestfallen. They've mounted an extensive campaign against Keystone XL, assailing the plan to transport millions of barrels a week of bitumen from the Alberta oilsands — an energy source they decry as "dirty oil" — through six U.S. states to Texas refineries.

"The administration cannot purport to protect the climate while simultaneously bending over backward to allow a pipeline to the continent's biggest carbon bomb," Kim Huynh of Friends of the Earth said in a statement.

Huynh wondered if environmentalists have been snookered.

"Was the president's initial rejection of the Keystone XL simply a farce to temporarily appease the environmental voters who dared to hold him to his own promises about real leadership on the climate and shifting to 21st-century clean energy solutions? It would seem so."

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said approving only part of the pipeline doesn't lessen the environmental risks.

"The Gulf Coast leg would add to the fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when we critically need to transition away from fossil fuels in order to avoid climate catastrophe," he said.

"The president's support for this pipeline is troubling. Keystone XL may be a boon to Big Oil companies in the exporting business but those profits will come at a stiff price for our land, water, wildlife and climate."

Environmentalists intend to stage a protest in Cushing on Thursday.

The U.S. State Department has yet to make a decision on the entire length of the proposed pipeline, saying it needs more time to conduct a thorough environmental review of a new route around an environmentally sensitive aquifer in Nebraska.

State Department officials are assessing the project because it crosses an international border.

In November, the State Department deferred making a decision on Keystone until after this year's presidential election, citing concerns about the risks posed to the aquifer.

Pipeline proponents cried foul, however, accusing Obama of making a cynical political move aimed at pacifying the environmentalists in the president's political base and improving his chances of re-election.

But within a month, facing a mid-February deadline imposed by that measure, Obama nixed TransCanada's existing permit outright, saying there wasn't enough time to thoroughly review a new route before giving it the green light.

Obama also assured Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the decision did not reflect on the pipeline's merits, and that his hand was forced by Republican pressure tactics. He welcomed TransCanada to propose another route.

News that Obama was set to speed up the approval process for the southern expanse of Keystone XL comes as prices at gas pumps in the U.S. continue to march towards $4 a gallon.

Republicans have been blaming Obama's energy policies for rising pump prices and have been relentlessly attacking him for rejecting the pipeline. Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has repeatedly called Keystone XL a "no-brainer."

Obama was on a western energy jaunt this week, also visiting Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio to promote and defend his energy policies.

The letter from the oil industry executives — one of whom, Continental Resources CEO Harold Hamm, is heading Romney's energy advisory team — also takes aim at the Obama administration for its proposals to repeal oil industry tax breaks.

The dispatch adds that proposed environmental regulations could impose "increased costs and bureaucratic delays (that) will cripple America's energy production and halt the renaissance under way in our nation's steel, plastics, chemical and agricultural industries."

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Keystone Protest Retrospective

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From Getty: SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 25: Protestors against the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline hold signs and stand on a Keith Haring sculpture as they demonstrate outside of the W Hotel before the arrival of U.S. President Barack Obama on October 25, 2011 in San Francisco, California. Hundreds of protestors from a wide variety of activist groups staged protests outside of the W Hotel where President Obama was holding a $7,500 per person fundraiser. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

From Getty: SAN FRANCISCO, CA - OCTOBER 25: A protestor against the construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline climbs on a Keith Haring sculpture as he demonstrates outside of the W Hotel where U.S. President Barack Obama was holding a fundraiser on October 25, 2011 in San Francisco, California. Hundreds of protestors from a wide variety of activist groups staged protests outside of the W Hotel where President Obama was holding a $7,500 per person fundraiser. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

From Getty: Demonstrators listen to speakers in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline. (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

From Getty: Demonstrators listen to speakers in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline. (Photo credit should read KAREN BLEIER/AFP/Getty Images)

From Getty: A demonstrator waves signs in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: A demonstrator dressed as an oil soaked bird in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: Demonstrators listen to speakers in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: A demonstrator holds signs in front of the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: A demonstrator holds a magazine open to an article concerning tanker routes for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline in front of the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: Children demonstrate in front of the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER

From Getty: Demonstrators hold up a banner in front of the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline. AFP PHOTO / Karen BLEIER

From Getty: Demonstrators begin to line up around the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: Demonstrators in front of the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: Demonstrators line up in front of the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.

From Getty: A sign is seen in Lafayette Park across from the White House in Washington, DC November 6, 2011 during a protest. Thousands of people are descending on the White House to join hands with one another and stand up to the Keystone XL pipeline.